WHAT HAPPENS TO ME AFTER DEATH IS NOT THE MAJOR, CENTRAL, FRAMING QUESTION . . . THE MAJOR, CENTRAL FRAMING QUESTION IS THAT GOD'S PURPOSE OF RESCUE AND RECREATION FOR THE WHOLE WORLD, THE ENTIRE COSMOS"
- N. T. Wright
N. T. Wright is a provocative writer and a ground breaker for the church to explore once again several biblical images that have either been ignored or needed reformulating for the 21st century.
Wright has reframed many theological issues from justification, the meaning of Israel in exile, and ultimate questions like God's kingdom breaking in the present and not just the future. Wright's theological provocations are to stir a sleeping church so that healing and transformation can happen to all of creation. So here is an example of Wright reframing the questions:
"To focus not on the question of which human beings God is going to take to heaven and how he is going to do it but on the question of how God is going to redeem and renew his creation through human beings and how is he going to rescue those humans themselves as part of the process but not as the point of it all" (p.185).
Is this not similar to what God does through Israel? Did not Israel make the mistake that many are making today to think that the point is their own personal rescue rather than seeing the larger picture in how God wanted to use Israel to rescue all the nations?
Wright does this kind of Socratic questioning where he turns the issues around for us to see something new we have possibly have not seen before or simply have long forgotten. With so much apocalyptic fervor today, Wright reminds followers of Jesus that the main point is not our escape from this world but God's future restoration of it. The point is not our going to meet Jesus somewhere else but Jesus coming back to meet us where we are at. Christians may not like to admit that they have been wrong on some of these things but doesn't Wright have a point?
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